


Horace Ronson and the Wizard Wheeze

by mevennen



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mevennen/pseuds/mevennen
Summary: This is basically a piece of political catharsis on my part although obviously I would never go so far as to lampoon an actual British politician, so all the characters in this are fictional. Having said that, the story came out of some musing on my part when an actual British politician became Foreign Secretary and would, therefore, have been the de facto boss of M16. How would they have coped, I wondered?





	Horace Ronson and the Wizard Wheeze

June 12th 

Up the stairs, fast. Then through the labyrinth of corridors, winding through the Georgian maze of Whitehall. You can tell when you’re getting close to power: the thick carpet swallows the sound of your almost-running feet. 

You’ve been summoned. It’s like the headmaster’s office all over again.

Would you care to explain to me, Bond, why you have:

…assisted in the placement of the housemaster’s VW on the roof of the gymnasium?  
…filled the school swimming pool with a week’s supply of porridge?  
…run up the Hammer and Sickle upon this establishment’s flagpole?

You stop outside the door, and it’s decades later and you’re a trained killer, a commander in the British Navy, a seducer of too many women to mention and still and still…

…I await with interest your explanation as to why you have seen fit to incarcerate Jenkins Minor in the school coal cellar…

You open the door. Moneypenny gives you that what have you done now expression, which is exactly the same look – mouth slightly pursed, eyes slightly wide, chin tucked in - that your headmaster’s secretary used to give you, all those years ago. 

“He’s expecting you, James.”

But you already know that.

You take a deep breath, of which you are rather ashamed. You go into the hushed sanctum, with its old masters of sailing ships, the bronze lion on the desk, the technology swept all out of sight and it could be the same man sitting behind the desk: tall, patrician, icy-eyed. Norman-lineaged Whitehall warrior with a dash of classic British bastard.

After all, it’s not as though you don’t know the type. You see it in the mirror every day. 

He says, quite mildly, “Ah, Bond. On time, I see. Thank you.”

“Sir.” You’re going to speak too quickly and this irritates you, but you can’t stop it. “About the car –“

“What? Oh, yes. The car. Jaguar aren’t very pleased, as one might imagine.” M leans back in his chair and taps his fountain pen (green ink only for official documents, an old-school SIS custom), on the leather surface of the desk. 

“Sir, 008 and I had no choice. You see, after the explosion – “

“Well, accidents happen and you got the job done in the end, didn’t you? I’ve read your report.”

“We really didn’t intend – “

“Not to worry, Bond. I’m not sure there’s anything else we need to discuss at this point, is there, unless there’s anything else you want to tell me?”

He is frighteningly calm. This is not normal. Rage would be more in your comfort zone. Fleetingly, you wonder if your boss is on drugs. But he’s not the type. 

“No, Sir.”

“Then I’ll leave you to your weekend, 007. Hope you enjoy some of this lovely weather. The BBC says it’s going to continue.”

“I – Sir, I must say you’re taking this whole episode awfully well.”

M bestows a long look upon you. He smiles, but it is a thin smile, not quite a rictus. His cold eyes hold an unfamiliar hint of ruefulness. You know that your boss does have a sense of humour – quite a strong one - but it’s full fathoms five right now and of its bones are coral made. 

“You’ll probably meet my next appointment on your way out, Bond. That should explain a few things. The expression is: holding one’s fire. Or perhaps it should be conserving one’s energies.”

You’re puzzled, but not inclined to argue. You have a hot date with a cold martini and a hopefully not-so-chilly blonde. You duck your head to your boss, mutter your thanks, and go back out through the door, where you are met by a large bouncing Labrador of a man, all floppy blond hair, ruddy countenance, ill-fitting suit and a faint hint of eau de Glenlivet. He is perching on Moneypenny’s desk, leaning over, too close to her cleavage. He obviously likes to live dangerously. Moneypenny has a fixed smile plastered to her lovely face. It is the same smile as M’s; despite differences in race, age and gender, they are starting to resemble one another in some peculiar fashion, rather as people grow to look like their dogs. Although there’s no way you’re ever going to say this to either of them for reasons which should be obvious. 

“Aha!” the man shouts. “Bond, isn’t it? Double O Seven! Hush hush, eh? Won’t say a word.” He taps his finger to the side of his nose in an exaggerated fashion. 

With a sinking heart, you recognize the Foreign Secretary, Horace Ronson, the boss of your boss (codename ‘M’, christened Gareth Edward Alaric Mallory). 

“TOP SECRET, EH?” Ronson bellows. Moneypenny shoots a fractional glance behind her, to the window, which is open and above a busy public thoroughfare. 

“Very good, sir. Nice to see you, as always,” you say, and you make your escape as fast as you can. But behind you, because you are after all a professional spy and your ears have been trained by decades of listening out for dangerous noises, you think you might have heard M sigh. 

*

M’s diary, 12th June (decoded)

Bond was in today, shuffling his Lobbs on my Axminster like a bloody overgrown schoolboy over that episode in Buenos Aires. I have elected not to take any further action over it: he knows what he’s done, it won’t stop him doing it again – found that out the hard way – and Jaguar LR will replace the prototype. I explained to their CEO that if they really want to explore the limits of a vehicle, then give it to us and after all it is formally known as ‘destructive testing.’ 

However, I did not have the stamina to give 007 a bollocking and then deal with HR. Horace Ronson himself, known as ‘Human Remains’ throughout the FCO because that’s the state that he tends to leave you in. I confess to finding all that puppyish public school bonhomie very wearing, even if I did go to one. It wasn’t Eton, though. He slapped me on the back as well, which I can’t stand. Both Moneypenny and I needed a cup of tea afterwards and we broke out, by tacit mutual consent, that industrial strength Darjeeling which 005 brought back from Mumbai; you could stand a spoon up in it. It almost counts as alcohol. Very restorative, actually, and Moneypenny made it even though it was my turn. 

This whole episode does, however, bear out the old adage of making a rod for one’s own back and it is essentially all my fault. When HR became Foreign Sec, and thus in overall charge of what is colloquially known to the general public as M16, but to the intel community as the Secret Intelligence Service, I realized very quickly that Horace had absolutely no conception – zero, zip, nada – of any of the three components of the SIS acronym. He doesn’t understand secrecy, he has no intelligence, and the concept of service (old-school duty to the public and to the nation, which my own father drilled into me) flits past him like a witch on a broomstick, to be fleetingly marveled at and then dismissed as entertaining but unreal.

As Moneypenny said, once we were sure he’d actually left the building and wasn’t about to suddenly burst back in through the door like Lieutenant Columbo, “Hello, newsflash: other people in existence shock.” 

I sometimes find her diction rather modern but she always hits the nail on the head.

Anyway, his appointment was 8 months ago now and as I say, I realized his limitations very quickly. And of course the trouble was that, once he’d taken on board that he was in charge of the actual secret service, he wanted to get involved. Actively involved, unlike his predecessor whose main interest was the nurturing of his personal share portfolio and the enhancement of same, and who was, thank God, largely content to let me get on with it. But no, Horace Ronson, old Etonian, fancies himself as a secret agent. And not the sort of secret agent who will spend a week living off protein bars in the boot of a car on a stakeout in the arse-end of Tbilisi, or painstakingly building up a relationship with a disaffected Iranian nuclear scientist. No, no, none of this tedium, that’s for the minions. Horace wants other things. Guns. Girls. Action. 

However, as I took pains to point out to him, despite the work of Mr Bond among others, this sort of thing really is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the operations of the SIS. Parking cars in the Tiber, causing the collapse of glaciers, seducing Kalashnikov-toting FSU lovelies and taking out half of Mexico City are certainly spectacular happenings, but they are rare and the rest of it is really is just bog-standard graft, sifting through the minutiae of comms and developing long-term relationships with people who just might one day be moved to betray their country. 

Quite boring, really. Like most of the human condition, in my opinion. That’s not a complaint, by the way.

Needless to say, Horace didn’t listen to a word of my earnestly delivered homilies and took to hanging around the office in his lunch hour, dragging me to local wine bars for drinks and talking at the top of his voice in public about ‘wet jobs,’ which is not a term we use and quite apart from that we really do try and avoid that sort of thing whenever possible. I raised the issue of there being no real moral equivalency between us and the GRU but this sailed right over Horace’s quiff unnoticed: he is an exemplar of the upper classes’ consistently mistaking articulacy for intelligence. 

I got him drunk, obviously. In vino veritas and all that. I hoped, vainly, that at the bottom of all that fatuous blond bumbling there might be something cold and slippery, the eel of intelligent self-interest sliding through the reeds of stupidity. But no, there wasn’t. He’s utterly venal but he’s a panicker: says something – anything - to get him votes, then realizes it’s unfeasible, then denies it, then comes up with another load of bollocks and will carry on doing that until he either expires or the world ends, whichever comes first. His heraldic crest should feature an ego rampant and zero strategy, unlike some of his contemporaries. Jago Lees-Hogg, for example, a man with whom I am often compared in Whitehall (three piece suits, handmade shoes) - he’s a chilly, untrustworthy bastard beneath all that ‘MP for the late nineteenth century’ caricature.

I can work with ‘venal.’ I find it difficult to work with ‘stupid.’

So after a few instances of Horace in wine bar, I decided to take action. With what at the time I considered to be fiendish cunning, I expressed the faintest hint of dissatisfaction with our tech department in a sort of offhand murmur, thus throwing poor Q and his ingenious underlings somewhat under the bus in terms of reputation, but it had to be done. 

“Not really top drawer, of course, can’t expect grammar school boys to really have the know-how, not brought up to think for themselves… gather some of them have actually come from comprehensives but that was my predecessor all over, ideals of meritocracy, of course she was a woman, probably felt sorry for them…”

“Totally understand,” boomed Horace, setting the wine bar windows rattling. “After all, you are one of us, Mallory, aren’t you? Father was the Duke of Whatsitsname, wasn’t he?”

It did not seem sensible at this juncture to point out that Horace himself was born in New York to upper middle class parents of Albanian extraction. I tell myself that it’s not that I’m a snob - I just like accuracy. 

I might be in denial. 

“That’s right. Roderick got the title, obviously.”

“Yes, I know old Rodders. Forgot you were his little brother. Anyway, what you need are a few wizard wheezes.”

“Exactly, Sir. I need someone who’s used to lateral thinking.” The only lateral thinking that Horace might conceivably have achieved would have been in the bedroom, but I really didn’t want that image in my head so it was out with the brain bleach, as Moneypenny might say. 

“Well, leave it to me! I’ll come up with some damn good ideas for you, Mallory, if I say so myself. Ripping stuff!”

And off he trundled towards Soho, like something out of the Beano. 

But my ploy worked, after a fashion. It got Horace off my back, although I did occasionally find him hiding behind a column in the department’s neo-classical courtyard, in plain sight of every window on the opposite part of the building, finger pressed to his lips and some asinine scheme on his mind. He doesn’t do that any more but he still gets in touch. Occasionally he’ll ring me up, usually in the middle of Newsnight or when I’m in the bath (I’m sure he’s either bugged the place or he’s psychic), with some bonkers notion like sending robot swallows into the Kremlin, or bugging the noodles served in the canteen of the National People’s Congress. I put up with this, however, because it keeps Horace distracted and lets us quietly get on with the job in hand. In fact, it’s worked so well that I passed the idea onto James Widdenshawe at 5, and told him that if the Home Sec gave him any problems, he might consider similar tactics. Don’t know if he took me up on it but he was grateful.

Then, this afternoon, I was shocked to find that Horace had come up with a notion that might actually work. 

I suppose it’s like monkeys with typewriters. 

*

June 13th

“Morning, Sir.”

“Morning, Moneypenny. Has that report come in from 5 yet?”

“Yes, Sir – it’s on your desk in a print-out. I know you prefer hard copies.”

“Jolly good, Moneypenny, and thank you. We can shred it later.”

“I did notice that the – subject - was in the newspapers this morning.”

“Yes. Exceptionally trying for the Venezuelans. They’ve been trying to play the whole thing down – I spoke to the Ambassador last night, occasionally see him at Lords – and he’s tearing his hair, poor chap.” Mallory sighed.

“I’ve been hearing all sorts of rumours.”

“Yes, I’d take some of those with a pinch of salt, mind you. But keep your ear to the ground all the same. A lot of it’s undoubtedly true.”

“But a dirty protest? In an Embassy? I know she’s been there for, what, a couple of years now? All the same…”

“I know. It’s more the sort of thing one associates with the Maze, circa 1980. Most unpleasant for the staff.”

Moneypenny grimaced in sympathy for her fellow civil servants and Mallory went into his office, there to sip tea and peruse the report. 

The trouble was, they really did need to know what was going on in there. And despite the cricket connection, Mallory did not think that the Venezuelan Ambassador would wear actual interference from his British hosts. He sat for a while, his tea cooling as he stared sightlessly at the muted walls of his office. Occasionally he tapped the fountain pen against his teeth. At length, he rose and loped to the door.

“Moneypenny?”

“Sir?” She finished her line of typing and looked up brightly.

“I know this is a rather odd question, out of the blue and all that, but have you any idea where to buy Whiskas around here?”

*

That afternoon, a pink tin of Salmon ‘n’ Tuna Chunks was there to greet Mallory incongruously upon his desk after his return from a brief lunch. 

“Ah, Moneypenny! Was that your doing? Good work.”

“Thank you, Sir. Was, er, was that for you?”

Mallory regarded her with a trace of disappointment. “I’ve had my lunch. Steak tartare and a salad at the Remove. I’m not quite reduced to snacking off cans of petfood just yet. Although God knows, what with Whitehall cuts, that day may come.” 

“No, no, I meant - I wasn’t aware that you had a cat? You’ve never mentioned it. I sort of had you down as more of a dog person.”

“Actually, I like both. No, the Mallory household mog, Clement, left us eighteen months or so ago at the ripe old age of twenty.”

“That is a good age for a cat,” Moneypenny said, intoning the ritual mantra used by the British whenever a puss passes on. 

“Yes. We have been meaning to get a kitten, not quite got round to it what with one thing and another, but they’re like buses: three will probably come along all at once.”

“So is this tin…?”

“I have plans for it, Moneypenny. Plans.”

And all thanks to Horace.

*

The Guardian, June 11th

A struggle over the US request for Julia Essenge’s removal from the UK will open in court on Thursday morning, a day after the EncyLeaks founder was served notice for breaching bail conditions to avoid being extradited to Norway.  
The decision was decried as an “outrage” by Angus Edmonson, the editor-in-chief of the whistleblowing website, who said the hearing at Westminster magistrates’ court to oppose Essenge’s extradition would be the start of the “big fight” – a process he said would be “a question of life and death for Ms Essenge.”  
A judge largely rejected the mitigating factors put forward by lawyers for Essenge – who took refuge in Venezuela’s embassy to London in 2017 to avoid extradition to Norway over embezzlement allegations, and who is still in residence – and told the 45-year-old it was difficult to envisage a more serious example of the offence.  
Meanwhile Essenge remains holed up in the Venezuelan embassy, along with her cat, Percy, whom staff are apparently feeding on the Encyleaks founder’s behalf.

*

June 14th

Mallory had modified his boss’ initial suggestion substantially, but it had given him the initial idea. He did not think that Palmerston, the official FCO cat, was really trainable when it came to spying on fellow Cabinet Ministers or the PM. Palmerston’s battles with the No. 10 cat-in-residence, Larry, were legendary throughout Whitehall and on one occasion, emerging from the Prime Minister’s abode, Mallory himself had been forced to separate them, luckily out of view of CCTV, by inserting a well-aimed Loakes into the shrieking feline whirlwind upon the pavement. 

Booting only. He might have been a former Lieutenant Colonel with Hereford, but that didn’t mean he was suicidal. Nigel Pangborne of the Min of Ag and Fish had been unwise enough to try to pick Palmerston up once, and after a trip to Casualty, still bore the scars. 

Mallory liked to think that he had a realistic understanding of cats. Dear old Clement had been a stout, somnolent beast, but even Clement could put on a surprising turn of speed and aggression if the occasion demanded it. So he had ruled out Palmerston, quite apart from the whole idea of spying on government ministers which really was not on (pointless trying to get that across to Horace, though), but there were other options. 

He looked up as Moneypenny put her head through the door.

“Sir, do you need anything more from me today?”

“No, thank you. That will be all. I’m planning to work late tonight.”

She nodded, smiled and disappeared. Mallory settled back at his desk and applied himself to various things on the to-do list, absently sending down to the canteen for a sandwich about seven. Towards half nine he noted with satisfaction that it was not only beginning to get dark, but was clouding up, which would nicely obscure any moonlight and would mute the streetlight glow. He hoped it would not rain, though.

He opened the door of the closet and quickly stripped off waistcoat, trousers and shoes, then selected a black sweatshirt, a hooded Gant windcheater which he sometimes used for sailing and a different pair of trousers, also in black. A pair of plimsolls and he was almost ready to go - except for one last thing. Into the pocket of the windcheater went the can of Tuna Chunks. He slipped out through the back entrance of the building, avoiding the main offices where the nightshift had come on duty, and along an alleyway that led away from the river.

It wasn’t too far from Kensington and he enjoyed the walk, remaining as unobtrusive as possible, an echo of the grey man of earlier days, in the army and beyond. At length, he reached his target: the Venezuelan Embassy. A handsome Georgian building, not large, with the nation’s flag hanging before it and a sizeable garden at the back. Mallory had already done a quick recce and was up and over the wall, landing deftly amid the shrubbery. At the back of the Embassy, a light was on and he could see a figure moving restlessly against the window, to and fro. 

A good job I do not have something more sinister in mind, Madam, for you are pottering about in plain sight…

He was relying on luck and luck rewarded him. As he opened the can of Tuna Chunks, a shadow detached itself from the dimness of the shrubbery and padded towards him. It was fulsome. It wound around his ankles and bumped his hand with its head. Mallory had rarely been so enthusiastically welcomed by a target. He tickled it under the chin and it purred like a motorboat. It liked the chunks, too, decanted onto the paving at the back of the shrubbery and it was only too happy to let its new friend remove its red velvet collar and then, after a few moments, replace it when most of the chunks had disappeared. 

Once all this was accomplished, to mutual satisfaction, Mallory dusted off his trousers and evaporated in one direction, and Percy the cat disappeared in another. 

*

June 15th

“Q?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Would you mind running this through the relevant piece of equipment and bumping up the volume for me?”

“Certainly, Sir. Is it urgent?”

“I don’t know yet.”

To Q, this meant ‘yes.’ He nodded quietly and took the recording away into a back office, returning a short time later with a small device.

“I’ve uploaded it onto here, Sir. You ought to be able to hear it, now. Might I ask where it comes from? There are some - funny noises on there. Sounds like a cat that’s got a mouse. I have cats myself, you see.”

“Yes, I remember you did,” Mallory murmured, “It’s just a little inside job. Thank you, Q.”

“Not at all.”

Up in his office once more, Mallory played the recording. There were indeed some funny noises, instantly recognizable to a cat owner as the warble of triumphant hunting. However, Mallory was almost moved to utter a triumphant warble of his own, because the target had chosen to unburden herself over the phone. In detail. 

Based on that conversation, he began running through a mental list of agents who might be dispatched to Washington in reasonably short order, when Moneypenny once more appeared at the door.

“Sir, Mr Ronson phoned when you were out, on the office line. Says that he wants you to go with him when he visits the States in a few days’ time. Apparently the new American Secretary of State wants to meet you. I’m sorry – I know it means dropping everything but he was quite insistent.”

“For once,” Mallory told her sincerely, “ it will be a pleasure.” 

June 19th

DC in summer was always a swamp. Mallory winced at the punch of heat and humidity as he walked down the steps of the aircraft and onto the Dulles tarmac, where a limo was waiting.

“Bit much, what?” Ronson complained. “This is going to play havoc with my hair, Mallory.”

“A shame, Sir.”

“Yours always looks neat and tidy – all short back and sides.”

“That’s because it is short back and sides.”

Ronson frowned as though this had some bizarre double meaning. “Who’s your hairdresser?”

Hairdresser? Since when did men start having those? Mallory wondered. He realized he was hopelessly behind the times in many respects. “I just go to a barber round the corner from my place.”

“Old pin-striped jim-jams Lees-Hogg says he goes to a barber, too. Wonder if it’s the same one?”

“I’ve never seen him in there.” He nearly added with or without pyjamas but thought in the nick of time that this might be all too easily misconstrued by the old Etonian sense of humour, so he smiled instead, and opened the door of the limo for his boss. 

*

M’s diary, 20th June (decoded)

Flight went well. Got some work done and started the new Le Carré. Bit of a busman’s honeymoon, I suppose, but v good. HR, thank Christ, was placed three rows down from me in first class. Could still hear him, though. Got in around 5 pm yesterday and straight out to a White House dinner. Not entirely ghastly as the food was good (why are their portions always so colossal though? My entree would have fed a family of five for a week) and my neighbor turned out to be someone in the FBI. Interesting man and in making casual conversation I got a couple of things cleared up, pertaining to the Cat Files, as I am now calling them. Horace enjoyed himself because he got to sit next to 45: separated at birth, says Moneypenny. Woke early – jetlag always a nuisance – and went for a run round the park, before it got too steamy. I know I went through selection in Belize but that was a long time ago now. 

Then meetings all day: did meet the Sec of State, who seems reasonably capable and is thus unlikely to last long in this administration, which idolizes not just the mediocre but also the staggeringly incompetent. Role of Press Secretary now like that of the Defence against the Dark Arts master in those kids’ books: basically doomed. 

I also had a long meeting with my counterpart in the CIA and some of her team: all positive stuff, mainly focusing on the Middle East and ISIL but also the rise of the far Right, long been a concern here and I know Widdenshawe at 5’s had plenty to say about it. Need to keep on the ball with regard to a lot of this stuff, plus the usual rogue operators. Still, good session and Rowena Blaine and I do manage to communicate pretty effectively as a rule. Couple of joint operations planned which I won’t detail here. 

After this, Blaine bought me dinner and I had a long chat with her second in command about the Ashes, so all good on that front. Retired about nine this evening, switched the TV in order to wind down for half an hour, and shortly after this there was a knock on the bedroom door and I opened it to find none other than Horace, hair askew, tie adrift and somewhat the worse for wear already, if I am not mistaken. He was not alone, being in the company of two young ladies in a state of dress (or undress) best described as ‘alarming.’ They were all very giggly and I was given to understand that I was being invited out to some club and one of the young ladies was for me. 

Refrained from casting eyes up to Heaven (blackmail, extortion, attention from the paparazzi, possibility of enemy agents masquerading as tarts, etc etc quite apart from the moral question of Mrs Ronson back in Blighty, although she apparently turns a blind eye, and the fact that both of them were young enough to be my daughters). Said this was most kind but it had been a long day with more to come tomorrow and was therefore a school night, regrettably. The young ladies were polite enough to look disappointed and at this point there was a loud moan from the television.

“Ooh, what are you watching, Mallory, you old dog?” asked my boss and barged past me to see, in fact, a naked couple having sex in full view on the widescreen TV. 

Then he realized that they were orange, very hairy and had extremely long arms. The camera panned back and a familiar voice murmured “After mating is complete, the male returns to the forest canopy, while the female begins to prepare for the period of gestation.”

“What ARE you watching?”

“David Attenborough, Sir.” 

Horace stared at me for a long moment, evidently wondering whether, as probably suspected, I am indeed the world’s most boring spymaster. 

“Oooh, I’ve watched him before. I just lurrrve the whole animal kingdom,” said one of the young women, plonking herself down on the bed, and showing signs of not budging: perhaps, like me, she considered a night in watching fornicating orangutans preferable to an evening spent with Horace. However, still giving me the side-eye, as Moneypenny puts it, he and they eventually left. (For God’s sake, I’m not going to watch pay-per-view porn in a room that’s almost certainly bugged, leaving me open to blackmail and more of the etcs above, even if I was inclined to do so on a trip at tax payers’ expense when I’m meant to be working).

I didn’t remain in front of the orangutans, though. There was something I needed to do.

* 

Mallory switched off the television and willed himself into sleep. In the early hours of the morning, the alarm on his phone pinged, waking him instantly. He rose, already dressed in the clothes that he’d used for the Embassy job, minus the catfood tin. This time, he had larger quarry in mind.

His luck was continuing to hold, in that the address for which he was heading was just across the park from the hotel, also in Georgetown. And the hotel bedroom was only on the first floor, close enough to the ground for Mallory to drop soundlessly out of the window. He could still pull some old tricks out of the hat even now that he was in his fifties, although his osteopath might have something to say about it later. The human knee suffered from a number of design faults, in Mallory’s opinion. 

He had become familiar enough with the layout of the park from his morning run. Rather than following the trails, he took a circuitous route through ornamental woodland, interrupted only by the chirping of cicadas. And the shadowy figure who stepped out of a bush with a blade in his hand.

“Don’t move, motherfucker.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mallory said, disgusted. Deciding not to muck about, he ignored the knife and punched the unsuspecting mugger in the face with maximum prejudice. The man went down without a sound and lay still. Mallory relieved him of the knife and chucked it into a nearby pond. Then he stepped over the prone form and went on his way. Monumentally tedious. Mallory did actually possess a black belt but really, just thumping people got equally decent results. A former lady friend had once remarked that it was like going out with John Buchan and Mallory had never been quite sure whether this comment was complimentary or not. Hard to tell, these days. Within a few minutes he had reached the edge of the park and the street he needed. 

Slight sense of déjà vu here, as he went up and over the garden wall after a quick recce. This time, however, the house – which was large, one of those McMansions although much of Georgetown was older and pretty – lay in darkness. Mallory sidled up to the back door and rather than start immediately with the dirty tricks, turned the knob, very slowly. The door swung open. Excellent, thought Mallory. Never underestimate human stupidity. He went in through the big kitchen, and found himself in the hall. Voices were coming from a room off to the left. 

“…lot of money in it for you, of course. For both of us.” The accent was Southern. “There’s an obvious risk.”

“Essenge’s gonna be forced out of her refuge eventually,” a second voice said. “Then the shit’s really gonna hit the fan when all that information spills out with her.”

“There’s more to come, then?”

“OH HELL yeah.”

“Bit too late by then, though, eh?” The third voice was louder, and cheerful. And British. 

Oh my God, thought Mallory. When he had taken up the post of chief of the SIS, once the immediate emergency had died down, another of his predecessors, Sir John Howes, had taken him for lunch at the Wolseley and told him, over a rather good Châteauneuf-du-Pape that something would cross his desk every day that would make his blood run cold. Mallory had too much respect for Howes to regard this as mere hyperbole and events had subsequently proved the retired Admiral correct. 

This was one of those moments. Very carefully, Mallory reached into the pocket of his windcheater and took out a little recorder, which he activated. 

“What about the paymaster?” said that familiar voice.

“Well, it ain’t gonna be in roubles, is it? Don’t worry. We’ve got channels for funneling the funds. Watertight. In my opinion…”

The conversation rolled on, taking some unexpected turns. Behind, in the hall, a grandfather clock struck the hour: bong, bong, bong. Mallory, who had been anticipating it, gritted his teeth and waited. 

“Hell, is that really the time? I ought to get back to the hotel. Ceaseless round of pleasure in the morning.”

“We’ll get you there. Max has got the car out front.”

“I don’t think I’d better be seen, had I?”

“Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll find you a hat.”

There were signs of movement from within. Mallory melted back into the shadows of a boot cupboard. In the crack of light from the open door he glimpsed a mop of blond hair, a shambling form. Then they were gone, leaving Mallory to leave the way he had come. And taking plenty of information with him.

*

M’s diary, 21st June (decoded)

I would say, I don’t know how he could, but this would be naïve. After all, I ask people to betray their country for money all the time. It’s a dirty game in a filthy world. 

But I do wonder how far this goes. 

I think I already know. 

*

21st June

Coming into the hotel lobby at eight the next morning after his now-customary run, Mallory encountered his boss reading a complimentary Washington Post. Ronson rose when he saw him. 

“Good morning, Sir.”

“Ah, good morning, Mallory! Missed a cracking evening last night!” Horace attempted a wink and somehow missed, but he poked Mallory in the ribs all the same. Taking his life in his hands, Mallory thought, but he managed to keep the polite smile on his face. 

“Yes, sorry about that, Sir.” Mallory managed what he hoped was a convincing simulation of ruefulness. “Getting older, I’m afraid.”

“Still yomping about the landscape, though, I see! I like the T-shirt,” Horace said, with a very faint trace of uncertainty.

The garment in question, worn under Mallory’s black tracksuit top, was grey and bore the legend UNDERESTIMATE ME with, beneath, IT’LL BE FUN.

“Thank you, Sir. It was a present. Office Secret Santa.”

“Oh, I see. Very good, eh? Funny.”

“Quite so.” 

“So I’ll be in with the President all morning. Yourself?”

“Oh, meetings, meetings. Very boring, I’m afraid. And we’re still flying out tonight?”

“Yes, back to jolly old Blighty!”

“Excellent.”

*

“Sir Gareth!” Rowena Blaine looked up in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.”

“No, it’s all a little last-minute, I’m afraid. Thanks for fitting me in. I wonder if there’s somewhere we might talk? Occurred to me that the CIA stood me dinner the other night and I forgot to give you a little present from the department I had with me – brought it all the way from England and then didn’t give it to you. Mind like a sieve these days. Sign of age.”

Mallory had worked with Blaine before and he had checked her out extensively. Dedicated to her job, apparently. There were some very old rumours of a college girlfriend but if she had a relationship now, she kept it under deep wraps. Mallory hoped she would survive the current American climate, but she was doing well so far: highly respected across the political party spectrum. He had long been inclined to trust her and now he looked her straight in the eye. All it took was one glance.

“Well, how kind of you, Sir Gareth, you shouldn’t have. Maybe you’d like a coffee? Or a tea? You Brits are more into tea, aren’t you?”

Chattering inanely, she ushered him down the corridor and into a curious chamber, with walls made of an unusual substance. Here, she shut the door.

“Sorry. There’s all manner of shit going on. Is your office bugged?” 

“I’m a bit careful what I say in it, certainly.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. But this is secure. Now. What was it?”

“This is a copy of a conversation held in a house in Georgetown last night. There’s a connection with the Essenge case and, let’s say, other nations.”

“Other nations which feature men in fur hats and a famous ballet?”

“Mmmm.”

“And how did you get hold of this conversation?”

“I recorded it myself. Security was terrible. These people aren’t pros. Enthusiastic amateurs, you might say.”

“Right.” She gave him a narrow look. “You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you?”

“I like to keep my hand in.” 

“Well, leave it with me. I’ll see if we can run voice recognition on it.”

“You won’t need to do that in the case of the British speaker,” Mallory told her.

“Jesus, you’re kidding me!”

But she knew he was not. 

*

M’s diary, 23rd June (decoded)

Got back a couple of days ago and said goodbye to Horace at the airport. Had to sit next to him on the plane going home and didn’t get a wink of sleep. Does he never switch off? Is it coke? Or just Horace being Horace? Thankfully it was the weekend so I was able to collapse over a stiff Scotch on the night we got back and recover for a couple of days. 

I have not, however, recovered from the Georgetown revelations. I don’t know where this is going to go. I’m intending to sit on it for the next 24 hours until I’ve really got to grips with its ramifications and then start talking to people, especially my brother (thank God Roderick’s in the Lords). This sort of thing makes me feel very exposed and it’s only my own connections that are likely to offer any protection if the shit does, indeed, hit the fan. As our Russian friends say, you need ‘roof.’ In the meantime, I need to ask Rod what his opinion is: whether we play our fish on a line for a bit, feed him misinformation for his Kremlin paymasters or try and get rid of him now. Roderick’s no fan of Horace but the latter has ambitions and the Tories might just be thick enough to put him in a position that has really serious consequences. One always hopes that reason will prevail but given how they’re handling Brexit, I’m not holding my breath. 

The best scenario might be that Horace cocks up being Foreign and Commonwealth Sec with some ghastly gaffe and has to stand down. Or we could make it look like that. 

Deeply ironic that it was one of Horace’s wizard wheezes which, admittedly applied in a somewhat different context, might yet prove to be the source of his downfall but an appreciation of irony is a must in this job. 

In the meantime, I think we had better be extremely careful about what information – from this department and others - that Ronson is allowed to see.

*

25th June 

You’ve been summoned, again. Back you trudge to the headmaster’s office, stuffing down a twinge of resentment that you’re being carpeted once more for getting the damn job done. Maybe the old boy ought to try getting his hands dirty for a change rather than sitting behind a desk all day pontificating?

You also fight back the knowledge that the old boy is not much older than you. 

A quick smile and a wink to a pensive Moneypenny, then through that well-protected door.

“Ah, Bond. Thanks for coming in.”

“Sir, about the plane – “

“Oh, don’t worry too much, 007. You didn’t plough it into any schools or hospitals.”

“No, Sir. There aren’t many of those out on the tundra.”

“Quite. The RAF aren’t too happy but I told the Air Chief Marshal that if they put better equipment on these things, we wouldn’t have had the problem in the first place. He muttered something about the ‘whole point of experimental prototypes’ but I ignored him. Now, next up is the Algerian job, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir. This is very good of you –“

An arctic glance. “Your records, Bond, do – several times - mention the word ego. Not everything revolves around you and your antics. It probably hasn’t occurred to you that I might have bigger problems than the admittedly-tiresome escapades of the 00 section.”

“No, Sir. I mean, yes, Sir.”

“That will be all, Bond.”

“Yes, Sir.”

You lean against the door for a moment on your way out. People talk about having an inner child. You feel that you have a perpetual inner eleven year old schoolboy. Just William, maybe. 

“James?”

“Yes, Moneypenny?”

“You have a thank fuck for that expression on your face.”

“Do I?”

“Rather.” She looks up as the door opens and a shambling Labrador of a man bundles in. There is egg upon his tie, a garish piece which you think might have come from Top Man. 

“Ah, Bond, isn’t it? Still saving the free world, eh? Thankless task, I’m sure. Never mind, when I’m Prime Minister, I’ll make sure all our hardworking British heroes are suitably rewarded! And given a pay rise with all the money we’ll save once we’re out of Europe!”

“Thank you, sir, that’s very kind. Are you, I mean, will you be – standing for the post?”

“Not quite yet, Bond, but soon enough, I feel. One day, one day!” He disappears into M’s office.

You turn and regard that closed door, that sported oak. For a second you almost thought you heard the old boy sigh.

END


End file.
